


You Can't Deny (The Facts of Life)

by DoreyG



Category: Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: Accidental Kissing, Dating, Denial, Episode: Harley's Holiday, F/M, Five Kisses Challenge, Five Times, Harley Deserves Only Kittens and Rainbows, Near Death Experiences, Past Abuse, Redemption, Secret Identity, Secret Identity Revealed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-24 23:33:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3788449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was an accident, the first time. Or at least that’s what she <i>swears</i> later, when asked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Deny (The Facts of Life)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Scathach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scathach/gifts).



i.

It was an accident, the first time. Or at least that’s what she _swears_ later, when asked. A surge upwards at the exact moment that he ducked down… And a sudden bump together. Simple. Expect for all the parts where it was complicated, what with his bruised lips and her tangled limbs and all the _staring_ while they were waiting for the cops.

(Even then, even with all of that, it’d been nice. Best kiss she’d had in years, though she was loathe to admit it with Mister J waiting.)

…Just an accident, and nothing more. Ain’t gonna happen again.

\--

ii.

The second time it was, again, _sorta_ an accident.

Or, if not really an accident, a spur of the moment sorta thing. She’d been fragile, he’d been weirdly nice, things had happened. Big whoop! It’s not like she’d have actually done it if she’d thought about it, if she’d deliberated for a while instead of feeling the dress in her arms and deciding _what the hell_.

So. Another accident. Or another sort of accident, another close to accident, another moment that didn’t really mean a _thing_ in the long run.

(It was still kinda nice, though.)

 _Ain’t_ gonna happen again.

\--

iii.

The third time… Can’t really be called an accident.

Or, really, a spur of the moment kinda thing. Because, you see, she _thinks_ about it. She watches Mister J push Batman into the drink, she observes as he keeps him down, she bites her lip when Bats doesn’t surface, she stays behind when Mister J turns on his heel and departs cackling into the night, she _stares_ at the dark surface of the water…

She freezes for a long moment, when a damp black shoulder bobs up, before she moves to grab it.

On land, in a small and sandy alcove under the docks, he seems smaller than usual. Not quite like a drowned rat, but… Eh, probably not the time for bat puns. She holds her breath, for a second, and then throws her full weight on his chest. Waits for another moment, and then seals her lips over his. It’s been a while, and she was never technically a medical doctor anyhow, but she thinks she remembers the basics. _Hopes_ she remembers the basics.

Come on…

Another depression, another gasp of air into his lungs.

Come _on_ …

Another-

The change, when it comes, is sudden. One moment she’s breathing air into a dead bat’s lungs, the next there’s the taste of dirty water on her tongue and warm lips are moving on hers. She stills for a moment, and then suddenly finds herself being shoved back – tumbling onto her butt as the Bat sits up, red-lipped, and _coughs_.

He stares at her for a moment after he’s done, tilts his head. It’s like he barely recognizes her, when she’s not trying to murder him to death “…Quinn?”

“The one and only,” is the only thing she can offer in return. 

(It was still kinda nice, is the troubling thing, even while he was _dying_.)

…She’s not entirely sure that it ain’t gonna happen again, is the troubling thing, as she allows him to shakily snap the cuffs on.

\--

iv.

The fourth time is… Weird.

The thing is that it _isn’t_ gonna happen again. And she’s just gotta keep telling herself that, come hell or high water. They’re from two different worlds. She’s bright, he’s grumpy. She can get five thousand words into a minute, he communicates only in grunts. She is – was - a _supervillain_ , he is – and always will be – the good guy.

So she tries to move on.

She gets herself cleared, again. Gets herself a flat in the city, a small and cozy one. Gets herself a dog. Gets herself a _job_. She works 9 to 5, walks Bruno and thinks longingly of her hyenas, goes back to the flat and never even thinks of her crazy life beforehand. She chats to Ivy, occasionally, but that’s _it_. Otherwise she’s clean, safe, _happy_ in her own special way.

And eventually, slowly, she starts to go out on dates.

Bruce, or Brucie as she starts calling him a quarter of an hour into their date, is an interesting guy. She _swears_ that she knows him from somewhere, but when she asks he only blinks at her innocently and claims to have one of those faces. 

…But it’s a hot face, so she can’t really mind _too_ much. 

He’s kind, he’s funny, and he seems to be genuinely interested in her. He laughs at most of her jokes, a low chuckle that sends heat coiling low in her belly, and makes _her_ splutter out laughing a few times. He buys her wine, doesn’t even wince at her bad pronunciation of the posh French menu, and never once calls her stupid. And the way that he looks at her… God. She feels ten times taller under his gaze, and if that isn’t an aphrodisiac she doesn’t know what is.

At the end of the night he waves off his driver – his driver! Man, she has it _made_ \- and walks her back to her apartment. At the door, when he hesitates for a second before bending in, she doesn’t even have to _think_. She’s already surging up on her heels, throwing her arms around his neck and-

(It was still kinda nice. Even though they were, or were pretending to be, different people.)

… _Huh_.

She’s starting to think, as she watches him cheerfully stroll back down the corridor, that this _might_ just happen again.

\--

v.

 _He_ isn’t expecting the fifth time.

You see, Gotham is her home too. She might not have it woven into her DNA as firmly as Batsy, or even a certain ex-boyfriend that she’s trying very hard not to think of, but it’s still _there_. She knows its alleyways, its corners. She knows the sweet song that it sings at midnight, when very few folk are about. She _knows_ it, intimately in her bones as if she was born here like the rest of them.

And she knows him, the Spirit of Gotham as he’s termed in some of the more lurid rags, too.

He’s brooding on a fire escape, when she drops down in front of him. He stares at her for a second in surprise, probably unused to seeing her out at night without a pretty mask on, and in that second she’s already moving. Before he can do more than open his mouth she’s kissing him, bouncing up to wrap her arms around his neck and slip her tongue against his.

(And it’s nice, of course. She didn’t know why she expected anything different.)

“Quinn,” he manages, a rough rumble as she pulls back, but she only grins at him – pecks him on the mouth again and then gently backflips off the metal frame, neatly landing on her feet and into a run before he can do more than give an amused rumble above her.

It’s gonna happen again, after all. No need to waste _all_ her night.


End file.
